I don’t think so. I have long maintained that we need to focus at least as much on the adaptation front as we do on the emissions-control front, because a lot of climate change is already “baked in.” And some rise in sea levels and increases in storm surges are particularly certain in the near term. Coastal cities like Miami, New Orleans, New York, etc. are going to have to invest heavily in infrastructure to keep the sea at bay, and the allocation of the cost of adaptation is going to become a significant political issue in the years and decades to come.

But though a rise in sea levels and an increased incidence of extreme weather are the easiest parts of climate change to understand, they aren’t actually the most important. Human beings adapt pretty readily to flooding. We know how to build sea walls, and ecologically-sophisticated systems of flood control. In the extreme, we know how to move – we are a highly mobile species.

It’s less clear how well we’d adapt to wholesale changes in the ecology attendant on changes in CO2 levels. An increase in the acidity of the oceans, for example, could significantly disrupt the marine food chain (what’s left of it after over-fishing). A wide variety of land-based species are also sensitive to changes in the climate; global changes could have an unpredictable global impact on overall biodiversity. The earth, of course, will adapt just fine; the terrestrial climate has seen some pretty huge swings over geological timescales, and the diversity of life has recovered from multiple mass-extinctions. Human beings, though, have only been around for a million or so years (much less depending on how picky you are about what counts as “human”), and large-scale civilization is only a few thousand years old. We have no idea how well that civilization would adapt to widespread ecological disruption.

Moreover, there is a synergy between efforts to reduce the impact of human activity on the environment and efforts to repair or adapt to the consequences of that activity. The slower the rate of CO2 and methane emissions, the slower these changes will progress; in effect, we’d be buying time to adapt. Adaptation efforts cost money; it makes more sense to raise that money through Pigovian taxes on the kinds of activities that contribute to the problem than to pile up debt or impose taxes that impose more of an economic drag. And breakthrough technologies that could radically reduce emissions would be just as useful to China and India as they are to countries on the developmental frontier. China will certainly not sacrifice economic development for the sake of the environment; take a look at their air quality if you doubt that. But could they be bribed to continue development on a greener path? I don’t see why not – it’s a question of price. Could we afford to pay the bribe? That depends on how big the bribe has to be, which in turn depends on the state of alternative energy and emission-capture technologies – which, in turn, is an argument for spending money to move that frontier.

None of the above is news. So why do the points need to be made over and over again?

You make my point, HeartRight, when you write that the only debate is how to tackle Global Warming. You won’t allow anyone to even ask if global warming is happening, or if increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are the problem. Once you’ve forbidden those questions the debate becomes, will we continue with our profligate lifestyles or take measures to keep our grandchildren from drowning or starving? Fine. I say, let our grandchildren drown and starve. You won the debate, and I have been exposed as a monster. Congratulations.

Ian, you’re part of the solution or part of the problem. And I’d take the position that the American people – just like their British or German counterparts – believe in solving problems rather than merely exposing them.

And as the Civil War amply illustrates, once they get around to problem-solving, they don’t go for half-measures. Obstruction has consequences.
Ask the Branch Davidians about it.

Bad news, Heartsmart, but we obstructionists are currently well in the majority. Try a thought experiment: Suppose an overwhelming majority of climate scientists were telling us that we had to give up cell phones in order to prevent an environmental catastrophe that wouldn’t manifest until the year 2070. How many people would stop using cell phones? Not a whole lot. Well climate scientists are trying to tell us that we have to stop using the energy sources that made possible the great leap forward in human prosperity in the Twentieth Century. Forget it.

Here in Canada, one of our provinces, British Columbia, actually passed a carbon tax. Sure enough, once people found out just how expensive it was, and how essentially recessionary its effects, they voted out the government responsible. That’s how the world works.

Here in Canada, one of our provinces, British Columbia, actually passed a carbon tax. Sure enough, once people found out just how expensive it was, and how essentially recessionary its effects, they voted out the government responsible. That’s how the world works.
Which is why there are levels of Government above the provincial level. [ US Civil War and all that ]

I have aboslutely no sympathy for those who choose self interest – rational or otherwise – over the Common Good.
Such people have no rightful place in human soviety.

Eventually, the Darth Thulhus win, and the Obstructionists get reconstructed. That is how the World works.

First of all Heartright, the health of the economy is the dominant common good in any human society. There is not a democratically elected leader anywhere who doesn’t know this in his bones, and if any should forget it they will soon be out of office.

And DC Wonk, I only suspect that man-made climate change is a monsters-under-the-bed story. As I indicated in my first post on this thread, I have no clue whether or not it is. I do know that the people who claim to have a clue that anthropogenic climate chanage is real are vigorously ignoring the clues that it isn’t, and aggressively shouting down rather than debating their opponents, which I consider an excellent indicator that they are exaggerating their right to confidence in their theory.

I am sure, Wonk, that there is nothing that can be done to suppress, let alone roll back, the continued global increase in atmospheric carbon. There just isn’t any energy source we know of that can deliver the same dollar per horsepower value as petroleum and coal. Of course, the climate change alarmists answer to this problem is to arbitrarily, by government fiat, increase the prices of petroleum and coal in an effort to force a conversion to some less polluting energy source. The problems with this “solution” are, (a)the arbitrary increase must foment a recession and (b)it may well be that an alternate energy source doesn’t actually exist.

I know you guys think I am seriously immoral, but I’m just describing the situation as I see it. May I be cooked to a crisp by the sun’s heat by next Thursday if I am misrepresenting my true beliefs to you.

1) What temperature should the world be set to, never to increase or decrease?

2) What shape should the world’s shorelines be, never to change for eternity?

It’s obvious there is some ideal we need to strive to, so I would love to know what the “correct” conditions of the planet are. We all know that climate and sea levels have been constant throughout history until we started to expel CO2, so how much do I have to pay and what sort of subsistence lifestyle is necessary to save the planet and get back to homeostasis?

Good one, Anon87. My father turned 20 in 1939, just in time for the start of World War II. World War II was a global tragedy, but it was also a kind of depraved party if you were the kind of person for whom life has no meaning unless it is a struggle of good against evil. Now we’ve got these climate change heroes who have found their life’s mission, and a rather comfortable one it is turning out to be, as its direst effects are many decades in the future, and may in fact be imaginary. People like George Monbiot and Bill McKibben can spend their lives in a valiant battle where no one has to actually suffer, and the horror is always far away in geography and time. Can no one see what narcissists these people are?